


Monster

by DoctorpooandtheTURDIS



Series: Go, Go, Godzilla [1]
Category: Godzilla - All Media Types, Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Crack Treated Seriously, Kind of a Happy Ending, Metamorphosis, Mutation, THIS is why I should not be allowed to write things, Will Becomes Godzilla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:42:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorpooandtheTURDIS/pseuds/DoctorpooandtheTURDIS
Summary: The Upside Down changed Will in more ways than one. He's undergoing a terrifying metamorphosis he can't explain, everyone is scared of him now.By the end of it all, there won't be a Will Byers anymore. Just another monster from the Upside Down that needs killing.
Series: Go, Go, Godzilla [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045095
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. A Purposeful Grimace

Will’s life had been normal once.

Once.

Despite his best wishes, his desperate prayers and pleading to the universe for nothing else, any semblance of normality after what happened in November of ’83 is fake. A façade. Some are better at keeping it up than others, yes, but it’s all lies, no matter who it is.

But it is lies _especially_ coming from Will himself. Sometimes he’ll flash back to that place, everything going dead and dark and cold around him.

That was to be expected. PTSD, they had called it.

But this is no mere PTSD.

He does his best to hide it from everyone. From his mother, from Jonathan, from his friends…

Being in the Upside Down had changed him. In far more many ways than one.

\------------

The first tiny inkling that something is wrong comes during puberty. He goes to sleep and when he wakes up the next morning, Will’s skin is stretched, pulled taut over muscles that were certainly not there the night before.

Part of him should’ve been happy, he felt. He’d always been the small, gangly wimp. Maybe people would take him more seriously now.

But he’s not happy. Will is terrified. Because he knows, he _knows_ this is not normal.

\------------

The next big tip-off is summer of ’84. Will had jumped into the deepest end of the pool, and Troy and James had come out of nowhere, holding him under.

His lungs felt like they were burning, and he kicked and spasmed, cursing whatever sorry excuse for a lifeguard that was on duty.

Just when Will’s chest feels like it’s about to explode…

He’s breathing again. Only this time, it’s underwater.

Will’s eyes shot open once he realized what that meant.

He was breathing… _underwater._

With a sudden burst of strength helped along by his new muscles, Will kicked the two bullies away, and scrambled to get out of the pool as fast as he could.

Back home, in the bathroom mirror, he checked himself over.

Six tiny slits, three on both sides of his head where his neck joined to his torso, had sprung into existence.

Gills.

\----------

Fall of ’84 had approached, and Will suffered through more panic attacks. The doctors had, thankfully, not registered his gills beyond a surface probe, and the muscles were totally explainable. But there is a hitch.

Will’s _still_ growing. He’s a thirteen-year-old in a body that was built for a sixteen-year-old, and others are starting to notice it as well.

Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, all on some level think it’s pretty cool, if a bit freaky.

The kids at school just call him a freak.

During one particularly bad day, with more teasing than usual, and another episode to boot, Will retreated to the bathroom.

Shaking, he took a breath, and felt it all. The past year of trauma and pain, all locked and buried away within him.

He can’t take it anymore, so he does the one thing the most primal part of his brain tells him to, and he screams. As loud and as long as he can.

A stream of blue fire rocketed out from Will’s mouth, smashing the mirror, and Will stumbled back, in horror.

\----------

The Mind Flayer possesses him, though the others manage to burn it out, but things just keep getting worse from there.

Will notices his skin has become tough, almost like thick leather. Pressing down on it only causes discomfort. The scar on his side, where his mother had stabbed him with the scalding hot fire poker, has scabbed over.

Only, it’s not a scab. It’s dark and rough to the touch like a scab, but it’s something else entirely.

Scales. And they’re starting to spread out.

\--------

One morning, Will wakes up to find that the pants he slept in don’t feel quite right. He went through a dozen pairs, all of varying sizes, and all equally as uncomfortable, before he figures out why.

There’s a large nub on his lower back, protruding slightly, made of the same black scales and flesh that’s completely overtaken his legs and is now working its way up his torso.

He’s growing a tail.

\-----------

Then, Will notes that he's getting tall, muscular. It's no longer a matter of him looking older than he actually is, it's a matter of his body deciding to jump to bodybuilder levels of muscle almost overnight. He tries his best to hide it, wearing the baggiest clothes he can find, but there's no denying it.

He's built like a truck now, for absolutely no reason. All of it is so much, so terrifying. He doesn't know what's happening, and he can't slow it down.

He just wants to be left alone. Of course, people don't leave him alone.

Not even Billy Hargrove, who sees Will and thinks he's someone in the high school.

By the time that fight was over... Billy was lying on the ground, bones fractured all in his arms, and his nose broken something severe.

Will, however, just has some mild bruising.

\-----------

All of these things push Will to the breaking point.

His mother can’t help him. The lab is shut down, and even if it wasn’t, he has no desire to go there. He considered talking to Mike, or Dustin, or Lucas, or Max, but none of them would have any frame of reference for what was going on. Even then, they’re scared of him now. He can see it in their eyes. Smell it wafting off them like a perfume.

Even El won’t be of any help, he thinks.

All he knows is, somehow, if he stays here, the problem is only going to get worse. He doesn’t know what kind of endpoint this… metamorphosis is going to wind up at, but he can bet it’s not going to be sunshine and rainbows.

Even if Will’s mind is left intact by the end of it, he’s not going to force his family to live with a monster under their roof.

So, he leaves a note. Grabs a few things important enough to him not to leave behind and disappears into the night

When the people in the house woke up, he’d be long gone.

\----------

He’s following his instincts now, pure and simple. Though, to be honest, he doesn’t quite know if they’re his instincts anymore.

Something’s compelling him to find water. Like an itch that has to be scratched right now, or it’s never going to go away.

So he runs, as fast as his legs can carry him, across the county. Something tells him that the body of water is going to have to be _big_. Really big.

He finds Lake Jordan, extending out far enough that the trees on the other side look like thumbtacks, and his alien instincts whisper to him its perfection.

Taking a deep breath, Will ran, and plunged into the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be my [Tumblr](https://d0ct0rp004ndtheturdis.tumblr.com/)


	2. A Terrible Sound

The water made things better… but also, in a way, so, so much worse.

He doesn’t know what he looks like anymore, but Will bets it can’t be pretty. Some of his fingers on both hands have fused together. Instead of five now, he has four, each one tipped with a sharp claw. The scales that have been taking his body over have covered him completely, and his own face doesn’t even feel right anymore.

It feels more animalistic, more like a crocodile’s than anything apelike.

His legs have become thick like tree trunks, and his toes have become more clawlike to compensate.

He’s also getting bigger too, much faster than he had before. Something to do with being in the water, he supposed. He didn’t make any concrete measurements, but judging by the way everything looked around him, Will estimated he was a good thirty feet tall now. Forty long if one measured him from the top of his head to the end of his tail.

Mountainous spines grow out of his back, running the length of his body, and Will found through tireless practice, that they were the perfect substitute for dorsal fins.

Even though Will is still bipedal, his body has become more suited to the water. His eyes can see through the cloudy substance clear as day, even as large and unwieldy as his body is now, it swims through the water gracefully, like it was made for this.

Like _he_ was made for this.

\-----------

Food, by far, is the hardest part. Lake Jordan simply doesn’t have the quantities of wildlife to sustain Will forever, not at the rate he keeps growing. He should’ve died of starvation a while ago. But he hasn’t. He doesn’t know where his body draws the energy, but he supposes he should be thankful.

The part of his mind that still remembers science with Mister Clarke chuckles. Will’s a regular violator of the laws of physics now.

For better or for worse.

\-------------

He was wrong about the food.

The actual worst part is the people that come by every so often to fish or whatnot.

He can see the shadows they cast on the seabed, and their figures floating on the water above.

It’d be so easy to just reach out. Let anyone know he’s there. But he’s about fifty feet tall now, and his mouth has changed so much it simply cannot form human phonetics anymore.

In trying to make contact, Will would scare the piss out of them, or worse, provoke them into attacking. He knows he’d be able to survive whatever they could throw at him, but he’d have to fight back to protect his safety…

And there’s only one way that would end.

\-------------

Will wonders sometimes, what the others are up to now that he’s gone. Are they looking for him, searching tirelessly despite his note saying not to go looking for him, or did they do as he said, and moved on?

He hopes it’s the latter option. That means they respected him enough to honor his last wish as a human. Then again, if they ignored it, that meant they loved him enough to disregard it.

He doesn’t know which option he prefers more.

\-------------

He’s starting to get sloppy; he knows it. The number of boats filling the lake are way more than usual, which can only mean one thing.

Somebody had spotted him, during one of his late-night stretches probably. Hawkins was a small enough town to where word spread quickly.

Even though he’s terrified out of his mind, another small part of him chuckles.

He wonders what name they came up with for him.

\-----------

It’s a long night, storming and pouring buckets when Will registers it. A shadow, stabbing at the back of his mind.

He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows that the Mind Flayer is back. And if that is the case, then surely his friends are in danger.

Will bides his time, however. Something is coming, he can sense it, and he needs to save his strength.

\---------

Will’s eyes snap open as he was roused from his long slumber. The Mind Flayer was on the move, if the sensations he was getting were any indication. They were much stronger, far more powerful than they had ever been, even while he had been possessed.

It’s up to something. What it is, he can’t say, but he does know it doesn’t bode well. Whatever army of Demogorgons it’s amassing this time are all going to be focused on his friends.

He needs to help them. They wouldn’t recognize him anymore, and would probably flee in fear, but he had to do this.

It was the Upside Down that made him into this.

He was owed a chance at payback.

Hundreds of gallons of water were displaced as Will stood tall at eighty feet, the tail adding an extra ten, before he began to walk, marching and disturbing the bed of the lake.

He strides out of the water, and dimly notices a couple of teenagers, who had been fooling around, screaming in terror as he walked out of the lake.

He ignores them. They’re not his target.

\-----------

Whatever it is, Will can smell it from all the way across town. It smells like death and rot and chemicals and it’s making a beeline for the woods. Will sniffed, hot on the trail of the scent.

Despite the fact that he’s taller than most of the buildings in town now, Will books it after whatever _thing_ that’s going for his friends. He’s walking down the middle of streets, attracting all sorts of attention, but he doesn’t care anymore.

The only thing that matters is keeping his friends safe.

\------------

Will makes it into the woods, and he can see it.

The only way he can describe it is as a spider. Like the Mind Flayer’s form in the Upside Down had been translated into the real world in a much smaller, much more mobile form.

And if the stink of death coming from it was any indicator, it was made out of corpses.

It’s standing over Hopper’s cabin, and Will can smell the fear coming from the people inside, as the monster looms over the wooden structure, unaware of the monster towering above it like it towered over the people trapped inside.

The monster shrieked and tore a hole in the cabin, and that was all Will needed to launch into action.

Making as much noise as possible, Will stomped his feet, and stood.

The monster slowly turned around, and Will bet that if it had been human, it would’ve been terrified. The creature’s head split open, and it screeched.

Will, stepping up to the table, steeled himself, and took a deep breath.

With a raging glare, Will pulled the sound from deep within himself and released a deep, bellowing roar that shook the trees and Earth all throughout the forest.

 **‘ _SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!’_** Will thundered like the trumpets of the apocalypse.

With a predatory grin on his monstrous face, Will glared at the Spider Monster.

The creature withdrew its tendril from the cabin, and screeched at Will again, before charging.

It may have only been half the size of Will in his current state, but half was still enough to knock him down. Still, that was a little good. It kept the monster from focusing on the others.

Out of his peripheral vision, he could see the door open, and the Party sans Dustin come running out. They stared at the scene, shocked, before Will roared again, trying to get them to run.

They launched into panicked action, running over to the station wagon, before climbing inside, speeding away.

The Spider Monster turned, intent on pursuing, before Will grabbed one of its spindly legs, and yanked it back.

The creature writhing and kicking desperately as he did so, Will stood tall, and grabbed one of its other legs, beginning to pull in opposite directions.

The Spider Monster shrieked in agony as with a wet crack and squelching pop, its body was split in two, bloody goo scattering everywhere, before Will threw it to the sides.

Getting revenge on the Mind Flayer in such a… brutal manner was nothing short of cathartic.

But this still wasn’t done. The Mind Flayer was likely to have a human agent working to track down the others already.

With a purpose firing up in his soul, Will marched after the car, following it to its destination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be my [Tumblr](https://d0ct0rp004ndtheturdis.tumblr.com/)


	3. High Tension

Will’s well aware that his footsteps cause tiny earthquakes. It’d be weirder if something his size _didn’t_ shake the ground while moving. He wonders for a moment why more people aren’t out gawking at him, but then he sees the sign.

The big Fourth of July bash is on tonight. That’s probably where most of the townsfolk are.

Good. Less people to see him. Not that he cared anyway, but still good.

The faint smell of engine exhaust, blood, and the scent he assigned to the Party assaulted Will’s senses, and he drug his tail as he walked up to Bradley’s Big Buy. The car was parked out front, but from Will’s height, he couldn’t see the inside of the building.

Being eighty feet tall could also be a curse sometimes.

Will turned, keeping his eyes locked to the distance, as he stood guard over the car.

Something told him the Mind Flayer was gonna be back.

\----------

“Look at it…” Jonathan whispered anxiously to Nancy, as both looked out through the front windows of the store at the eighty-foot tall monster. “It’s just… standing there.”

“What’s it doing?” Nancy muttered, keeping her eyes locked on the monster as though it would vanish the moment she looked away.

“It looks like it’s standing guard over the car…” Jonathan muttered. “But why… why doesn’t it just smash it?”

“…Back at the cabin,” Nancy recalled. “It fought that other monster, remember, the one like the one from the hospital?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe this one is… different?” Nancy suggested.

“…You’re suggesting that a giant monster is on _our_ side?” Jonathan incredulously asked.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Nancy replied, as the titanic lifeform’s breathing rumbled the building like distant thunder.

“Guys!” Mike rushed around the corner. “We found him! We found Dustin!”

\------------

Movement below caught Will’s attention, and he slowly turned, as the Party, staring at him, moved slowly and slowly towards the car.

Will took a few steps away, allowing them safe passage to the vehicle.

The group of teenagers looked up, gawking at him, even as they entered the station wagon.

El, the last one to get in, looked up at him, and waved.

Will huffed but waved back.

“…did you just wave to the giant alien monster?” He could hear Lucas ask as El finally climbed in.

The car was thrown into gear, and began to speed away, Will pacing calmly to keep up.

Truthfully, he had no clue what was happening. He could only trust that his friends were making the right decisions.

\-------------

Something became readily apparent as the car drove. They were going to, of all places, Starcourt.

Why the _hell_ would they be going to the mall? The regular store made sense. They probably needed triage supplies after the monster had attacked the cabin, but the _mall_?

When they pulled into the parking lot, the Party scrambled out of the car, running into the mall, leaving Will on outside duty.

Again.

\--------------

A few minutes passed, as Will noticed another car pulling up to the mall. The brakes squealed and screeched as it stopped, and Will couldn’t hold back the pained yelp upon seeing the woman in the passenger seat.

His mother was there… and she was looking at him in pure, unrestrained, terror.

Will stepped back, falling onto his back, trying to make himself look as non-threatening as possible…

Until, that is, a pained scream coming from inside the mall caught his attention.

The building probably couldn’t hold his weight, but that didn’t matter. Will had to see what was going on inside.

He climbed onto the roof as carefully as he could, slowly inching along, before he peered through the skylight into the food court.

Steve, Dustin, some girl Will had never met, and Lucas’s sister all screamed in terror upon realizing he was there, only to be stopped by the others telling them he was fine.

El was slumped up against the counter of one of the food court restaurants, as Jonathan worked on a cut on her ankle. She pushed him away, and reached her hand out, the air tingling as she focused her mind, pulling out a brownish-red sluglike… thing from the cut, throwing it to the side.

It was crushed under Hopper’s boot, and Will blinked. Those three from the car were fast.

As he watched the tearful reunion of the group, Will couldn’t help but feel a small tear prickle at his eyes as well.

He should’ve been there too.

\------------

“The Mind Flayer,” Mike exposited to the new arrivals, all of them gathered around to listen. Even with Will being separated by glass and forty feet of empty air, he could still hear just as fine. “It built that monster to kill El and pave a way into our world.”

Apparently, what Will had been able to piece together so far from second-hand listening, was that the Russians, who were _actually_ in charge of Starcourt, opened the portal back to the Upside Down, which allowed the piece of the Mind Flayer that had been in Will to possess Billy, which then went on possessing others to melt down into a body.

Which explained the chemicals and death he’d smelt coming from the monster.

“And…” Hopper carefully pointed up, but not looking as though he thought that meant Will couldn’t hear him. “What about that one?”

“That one’s… different.” Nancy replied. “We don’t know why, but that one seems to be… helping us.”

“Are we _sure,_ this thing is still out there?” Joyce asked. “Still alive?”

“Big grey up there ripped it in half,” Max began, and Will allowed himself a proud snort. “But yeah… it’s probably still alive.”

“H-How can you be sure?” Joyce stammered.

“The first monster we saw like that at the hospital could melt itself down and go back to normal all it wanted.” Jonathan explained. “It’s probably going to be the same way with this one.”

Suddenly, Will was cursing his own lack of foresight. He should’ve vaporized the thing with his… blue… fire… breath stuff, but he’d been so focused on the others, it slipped his mind.

He watched as the others went through the motions of a plan, Steve, Dustin, Robin, and Erica going to exit first, before Murray began showing Jonathan and Nancy the keys to his home so they could get inside.

Hopper sat with El off to the side, talking quietly to her.

Will’s mom was standing, by herself… and it was all Will could do not to burst into tears. He should’ve been down there, with his friends, with his family…

He should still be _human,_ not whatever he is now.

He wanted to speak, tell them so, so badly that he was _right here_ , that he’d always have their backs, no matter what…

But his mouth couldn’t physically make the sounds. Whatever came out was liable to be nothing more than a choked roar that would scare them.

He watched as the younger group split off, going to exit the mall, leaving Murray, Joyce, and Hopper to go across to the other end to that lift room Dustin had described.

Moving carefully as to not cause the building to collapse underneath him, Will stepped down, far enough away so he could see the others, but not scare them.

They were having troubles with the car, apparently, and he tilted his head in confusion. That was a new car, wasn’t it?

An engine revved in the distance, and Will’s head snapped over.

The smell of the Upside Down stunk coming from the car, which only confirmed who it was.

Billy had found them.

With a snarling growl, Will took two stomping steps forward. If now was a good time to use that fire breath or whatever it was, it was now, while Billy was stationary.

Clenching his fists, and drawing upon the sensations he’d felt the first time when he accidentally let it loose in the bathroom, Will could feel the energy crackling in every cell of his body, a faint blue glow illuminating the ground around him.

So he was bioluminescent too. That was new.

With a raging stomp, Will opened his mouth, letting the stream of aqua fire shoot out like he was a flamethrower.

Billy, or the Mind Flayer, whoever, apparently hadn’t expected that, as the car remained still. Though Will could faintly see the panic on Billy’s face and the fear coming off him, it was far too late to react, as the fire struck and consumed the car, leaving it nothing more than a half-molten piece of slag melted into the ground.

He briefly registered Max’s cry of anguish as she and the others scrambled to get back into the mall, but Will truthfully didn’t care anymore.

It was the Upside Down that had made him into this. No mercy to _any_ who were part of it now.

Thudding footsteps, much quieter than Will’s, echoed faintly behind him, and Will snapped over to look.

The Spider Monster was back, reformed. It didn’t even offer Will a glance as it jumped through the skylight of the mall, landing in the food court.

Billy had just been a distraction.

Will let out a furious, frustrated roar, as he stomped onto the roof of the mall, following the Spider Monster’s path.

Making sure his friends were not underfoot, Will jumped down, shattering concrete underneath him like it was glass.

Snarling at the monster with uncontainable rage, Will charged, and tackled it to the ground, going to rip it apart with his jaws alone.

The lights strobed wildly, the humans taking the opportunity afforded to them to run, as Will grabbed the Monster’s head, slamming it into the ground over and over.

Looking to his side, Will grabbed the broken car that El had tossed into the wall upon her arrival, and swung it like a club.

The Monster kicked and screeched, and with a sudden burst of strength, kicked Will off it, getting to its feet. It charged, climbing onto Will. Its jaw split open, and it bit down as hard as it could, sending dark red blood flying all over the place.

Enraged, Will roared as loud as his monstrous larynx would allow, parts of the mall being brought down from the sheer rumble alone.

Will reached up, and pulled the Monster off, throwing it to the ground.

Raising his foot, Will brought it down on the Spider Monster’s head, sending the creature plunging to the floor in pain, as the head was crushed, the goo-like substance that made up its body splattering everywhere. The head began to puff back up, returning to its proper shape as it reformed.

Fighting inside this cramped building wasn’t ideal. Will was double the height of it. So, Will picked the beast up, and drug it outside, walking through the roof and walls of the building like they were nonexistent.

Outside, Will could see the others in the distance looking on, like they were watching a cage fight.

They were rooting for him.

Spurred on, Will ripped a section of the roof off, grunting under the weight of the load as he carried it. He stomped over to the Spider Monster, which was still trying to climb to its feet, and dropped it on the creature, pinning it down under the weight of the roof section, and the weight of Will himself.

The Monster snarled, trying to attack, but for each tendril it produced, Will simply ripped them off.

Will grabbed onto the Monster’s head, making sure it was looking at him.

Will wanted it to see the face of its killer. To know that the same kid it had tormented had become the monster to kill it.

He ripped the Monster’s jaws open, the creature screeching, as Will charged his fire breath once more. With a hellish boom, the fire lanced out, burning through the Monster’s head like it was nothing.

However, Will was not done. He stepped off the body, finding more energy within him, and redirected the stream at the rest of the body. There wouldn’t be anything left for the Monster to reconstitute from, not if Will had anything to say.

By the end of it, a crater had been charred into the ground, leaving only the scent of burnt flesh wafting through the air.

Will stood to his full height, and let out a deep, rumbling, victory roar, sending it echoing for miles through the town.

“God…” Jonathan muttered, staring at the gigantic lifeform in awe.

“…Zilla.” Steve finished. Wait, weren’t he and Robin supposed to be with Dustin and Erica? The radio silence must’ve startled them into sending help.

The other humans all looked at Steve like he was the biggest moron they’d ever met.

“What?” Steve shrugged. “It’s a good a name for him as anything. I mean… look at him.” He gestured. “You look at that thing and _tell_ me there’s a God.”

Well… Will couldn’t argue with that. He felt pretty Almighty at the moment.

But, alas, it was shattered by the whirring of helicopter blades approaching, as they descended on the mall. Will took a step, putting himself in between the soldiers and the Party, but did nothing beyond that.

The soldiers all shouted something as they piled out, pointing their guns at him, but realistically, there was nothing they could do. Not against something that size.

For the longest time, Will had been the one in need of protection. He was the smallest, not the fastest, and certainly not the smartest.

But now, the roles were reversed.

Even as a monster, until the day he died… the Party would be under Will’s protection.

\------------------

There was confusion, to be expected. Doctor Owens, who was the one who came in leading the calvary, at first couldn’t explain the giant monster keeping watch over the teenagers and couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do if said giant monster went hostile.

Will, of course, didn’t go hostile. He sat calmly, patiently, watching as the firefighters and paramedics arrived on-scene to assist. There were gawkers at him, yes, but they were quickly dispatched by there being people to take care of.

A couple of hours passed while the paramedics tended to the injured of the Party, but eventually, Joyce and Murray emerged from the rubble of the mall…

Sans Hopper.

Will got a terrible, sinking feeling in his gut as Joyce looked to El, and burst into tears. The girl didn’t take long to realize why, and she ran to Joyce for comfort.

Will let out a regretful sigh, his ginormous head falling. Every time the Upside Down attacked, there were always casualties.

He watched as his mother, now the size of an ant compared to him, embraced El. First, she’d lost her son, now she’d lost her… lover? It was always confusing, trying to put what relationship Joyce and Hopper had into words.

He looked at El, the girl bawling her eyes out uncontrollably, then to the rest of the Party, who were unaware of what to do.

To be fair, he had no idea what he was supposed to do either. He just killed a monster.

But he didn’t feel victorious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be my [Tumblr](https://d0ct0rp004ndtheturdis.tumblr.com/)


	4. Gojira

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gojira-
> 
> Japanese
> 
> Meaning: gorilla whale

_Hawkins, Indiana. The perfect picture of small-town America. What do you expect to find out in a small place like that? Mom and pop stores? Friendly ladies and gents going about their day?_

_How about a giant monster living in the local lake?_

_Scientists in Hawkins have recently determined that the town’s local recent mythical creature, Jordy (named for the Lake Jordan in which it was said to reside) is not, in fact, a myth._

_The first sighting of the creature occurred on June 18 th, 1985. Since then, rumors were rampant about the monster living underneath the waves._

_Then, on July 4 th, Jordy made waves of another kind when, for seemingly no reason, it stood up and walked out of the lake it called home, before heading to the local Starcourt Mall. Jordy then proceeded to demolish the mall in what seemed to be a fit of rage._

_Scientists say that emissions from the mall were interfering with Jordy’s habitat, agitating it to the point of rage. Despite the destruction, steps to kill the monster are not being taken._

_“This is a unique specimen,” Doctor Ishiro Serizawa, a biologist leading the conservation effort to protect Jordy, said in an interview, “To destroy it would forever rid the world of a beautiful work of nature. This specimen could very well be the only one of its kind. It is thus deserving of our protection, not our scorn.”_

_Being the first specimen in a newly discovered species, Jordy’s habitat has been cordoned off to the public, as efforts to study the creature, and potentially find more of its kind, have begun._

_\------------_

Will huffed as he poked his eyes out of the water. Just a couple of months had passed since Starcourt, and in that time, the peace and relative quiet of Lake Jordan had been shattered as scientists set up a base around the habitat to study him.

He supposed, in a way, he should be grateful. Instead of killing him, they’re trying to figure him out. Maybe, if he gives it long enough, they might figure out he used to be human, and work out a way to turn him back.

Maybe that was wishful thinking, but… he wanted to hope, at least.

These new scientists weren’t bad people, either. Most were actually rather like marine biologists and the like rather than the morally bankrupt people from the Lab that he’d seen firsthand, filled with a kindness and passion for their work that came from a place of love rather than hate.

Serizawa was a pretty cool dude. Seemingly the first to pick up on the fact that the animal they were studying (they never said monster, something that Will was so immensely grateful for, it almost reduced him to tears when he thought about it) indeed possessed higher intelligence.

There was a Doctor Graham, working as Serizawa’s assistant, who was puzzling out a way to actually _communicate_ with him. Will hopes it works, because while they can talk to him and he can understand them, he can’t speak back, no matter how hard he tries.

Then there was Doctor Chen, the prettiest woman Will had ever seen, like an angel had fallen to Earth. She was always the one to speak to him like he knew what was going on, regaling him with stories of her family. It’s a welcome distraction, but it tugs at his heart.

These new people, he dares to start calling them his friends because he’s that starved for social contact, are all wonderful, shining examples of human beings…

But they’re not his old friends. They came around once to give thanks to him for them saving their lives, but never once more beyond that.

Not even his own mother.

He can’t blame her, really. She doesn’t even recognize him.

\-----------

Then, one day, while he was sitting in the lake, Will got the most unexpected visitor he’d seen yet. The Party had special visiting privileges because of the attachment Will exhibited to them, but they didn’t use it.

El stood at the edge of the old boat jetty, something that the scientists now used whenever they wanted to talk to ‘the Specimen.’

They called him many names, actually. Titanus Gojira, the Specimen, Godzilla…

The one he really, _really_ hates is Jordy.

What a stupid name.

El sat down on the edge fearlessly, making splashes in the water with her feet, looking down blankly. “…we’re moving.” She said after a moment.

Will’s brow shot up.

“Joyce, Jonathan, and I…” She continued, swallowing. “It’s… she said it’s too much. Staying here. She’s right.”

Will let out a sad rumble.

“I don’t… I don’t want to go…” El cried. “But I can’t _stay_. It’s like… everywhere I go, I see his face.” She sniffled. “I miss him… so much.”

Will closed his eyes, and slowly nodded. He could understand.

“I just…” El wiped a tear, as she stood up. “I thought you’d want to know. And I wanted to say thanks again… one last time.”

Will opened his eyes, and let out a breath, trying to convey that he was thankful. At least he could rest easy, knowing his family was getting out of this village of the damned. Even if it was without him.

“Goodbye…” El slowly turned, walking back down the dock. “Friend.”

He watched as El departed, and he closed his eyes, sinking back under the water.

He could rest easy, knowing the others would be safe.

\-------------

Unbeknownst to Will, however, things were not truly safe. The Mind Flayer had taken steps in doing something else before it had gone to Starcourt.

It found a handful of creatures, just the ones it needed to launch its next plan. It would need Will out of the way, for if he kept growing, he’d become unstoppable.

Three snakes had long mutated to human size deep underneath Hawkins, in the old tunnel system it had carved out in its last attempt to invade.

The three snakes fused together, reptilian features twisting to become almost dragon-like in nature, as they grew into a body with only two legs, and no arms. A set of wings were growing, slowly protruding out of their shared back.

The creature kept growing, and growing, and soon enough, it’d be more than a match for Will.

**Author's Note:**

> Here be my [Tumblr](https://d0ct0rp004ndtheturdis.tumblr.com/)


End file.
